


Rhythm in the Beat of Your Drums

by fiarra



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Fluff, Graduate School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 11:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiarra/pseuds/fiarra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Second year graduate student Derek Hale just wants to pass his qualifying exam and avoid undergrads. He wasn't expecting his new neighbors' cover band, or Stiles. He definitely wasn't expecting Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rhythm in the Beat of Your Drums

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Teen Wolf Reverse Bang and based off this [adorable art prompt](http://livelvish.livejournal.com/1203.html) by livelvish. Please go look at the art and leave her comments. She was very patient with me and my inability to respond to emails promptly.

Derek loves living in a college town, he really does. There’s enough activity to keep him distracted and busy. He just might like it better without all the college students.

He’s only really lived here for one summer, but Derek can already tell that it’s going to be his favorite time of year. During the day, the air hangs over everything, hot and muggy, filling up his lungs with the heat and smoke of the city. By the end of August, Derek has settled into a nice routine: morning runs before the heat picks up and then taking the train over to campus, where he stays in the sweet lab air-conditioning until well past dinner, trying to write a graduate grant proposal and reading his way through the papers his advisor likes to leave on his desk. His advisor, Alan Deaton, is still new to the department, so Derek is the only student in his lab and with the undergrads gone, everything’s peaceful. 

That peace is brought to an end towards the end of August. It starts with lost-looking teenagers wandering around campus, equally lost-looking parents trailing behind them with orientation folders. After three days in a row of parents asking him for directions to the admissions building while their daughters (or the one son) make cow-eyes at Derek behind their backs, Derek resolves to start remembering to pack a lunch so that he doesn’t have to leave the lab at all.

He spends the last week of August in a fierce email battle with the TA coordinator, who’s always been an ass to all the graduate students but seems to have a special spot of hatred saved just for Derek. It doesn’t end well for Derek, who ends up assigned two sections of intro bio for non-majors on two different days, instead of the two sections of genetics lab that he had been promised in the spring. As a result, he forgets about September 1st until it’s too late.

Last year he wasn’t even in the city for the big move-in day. His cousin Josh’s wedding was that week, so he’d stayed home to help with the preparations and attend. The semesters never start until after Labor Day anyway and Professor Deaton hadn’t really cared when he started working in the lab. 

Derek tries not to think too hard about how the wedding was the last time he’d seen his family together. The pictures are still locked in a box that he keeps on the top shelf of his closet, where they will possibly stay forever, since Derek is pretty sure he’ll never be ready to look at them again.

It doesn’t take Derek long to catch on to what’s happening, though. It starts on his morning run, when he finds himself having to run around piles of abandoned cheap IKEA furniture, often with makeshift “FREE!” signs taped to them, abandoned by students ending their leases and moving with the start of a fresh year. By the time he loops around to head back to his apartment, there are also moving vans and people carrying boxes to contend with. Derek ends up putting his head down and turning up his music in an attempt to drown it all out. He’s only marginally successful. By the time he turns the corner to his street, he’s feeling more than ready to just go shut himself in the lab again. Of course, nothing is easy in Derek’s life, so there’s a U-Haul truck parked right at the front entrance to the building.

A confused-looking undergrad stands by the open back doors of the truck, staring into the depths at a pile of boxes. He looks up when Derek pauses by the front entrance and starts punching in the security code to get into the building.

“Hey man! Can you just hold the door for me for a sec?” The boy gives him a hopeful smile. Derek finishes punching in the code and nods impatiently at the open door, just wanting to get inside. Over by the van, there is a scramble to pick up a box and then he rushes over to get into the building.

“Thanks so much. My mom’s up there now waiting for me and I had no idea how to make this work on my own. I’m Scott by the way. I’d shake your hand, but...kinda busy....” Derek just stares silently at Scott until he trails off into silence. He knows he’s being rude, but honestly, he’s just tired and in no mood to entertain actual conversation. The building is big enough that he’ll probably never have a reason to see Scott again, anyway.

“I’m Derek,” he says into the silence. He then turns and pushes the button to call the elevator. An awkward silence settles over the lobby and Derek stares at the floor numbers, willing them to light up faster. When it finally arrives, he turns to stare expectantly at Scott for a floor number.

“Uh...If you could push 3, that would be great, “ Scott mutters, shifting his grip on the box in his arms. Derek pauses and, in a terrible moment of clarity, remembers the empty apartment next to his...on the third floor.

\---

The first few weeks of the semester fly by in a haze of reading for his evolutionary ecology class and trying to get two sections of blank-faced freshmen excited about protists. If Derek’s honest with himself, things are looking pretty bleak on the teaching front. 

The first week of classes, the biology department hosts a mixer to welcome the new students and Derek meets his new labmate for the first time. He’d been away on field observation the day she visited the school and since then, she’s been on vacation in Majorca with her family. He’s standing in the corner, nursing a cup of the terrible beer that he got with his free drink ticket and trying to avoid talking to creepy Professor Harris, who keeps trying to get him to switch labs, when his advisor finally walks into the room, followed by a redheaded girl gesturing emphatically as she talks. As the door swings shut behind them, she finishes her thought, nods at Professor Deaton, and then sweeps over to another student, a smirky brown-haired boy. 

Deaton walks over to Derek with a smile. “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to be regretting this terrible beer. That’s Lydia?”

“Yeah, she said she’d come over to say hi in a bit.” Deaton pauses and then puts his hand on Derek’s arm. “It’s good to see you looking a bit more relaxed lately. I need to go chat with Harris, but we should meet next week to talk about your quals.” Derek nods and Deaton walks away.

He’s just thinking that maybe he should go over to say hi when Lydia gives the boy she’s with a kiss on the cheek and walks purposefully towards him.

“Hi, you must be Derek. I’m Lydia,” she says with her hand held out.

Derek shakes it. “I am. I haven’t seen you around the lab yet.”

“Oh, you will,” she replies confidently. “I’m just working on my fellowship proposal at home. I figure I’ll get it done by next week and then I’ll be around.”

Derek pauses, remembering the anguished months he spent working on his own proposal last year. “Don’t you have classes or something?”

Lydia just grins at him. “I did all that reading before the semester started. I just need to show up.”

“Oh,” he says, faintly. There’s an awkward pause “Who were you were talking to before? Is he new too?”

“Oh, that’s Jackson. He’s just started in that new lab that does the lizard work? Really cool stuff. I’m sure you’ll get to meet him properly sometime.”

They make a little more small talk and then Derek excuses himself. He has a pile of lab reports waiting to be graded and another paper to read before the morning.

\---

The week after the mixer, Derek spends most of his time desperately trying to make appointments with each of his thesis committee members so he can sort out his qualifying exam, which is happening much too soon for comfort. The timetable is rough, especially with his course load and teaching, but he’s determined to get it done and keep making progress toward his degree. He has four committee members, including Deaton, and he needs to get two papers from each of them. Once he does that, it’s just a few short months of cramming as much information into his brain as possible before the exam.

Professor Morrell has an open door policy and is the easiest to meet up with. Derek ducks into her office after class and walks out with his assigned papers and a pile of extra reference books. It then takes him two days to track down Professor Finstock. They had exchanged emails before the semester started and Derek knows his teaching schedule, but every time he stops by his lab, an overworked looking undergrad tells him that the professor is off looking for Greenberg. Derek is honestly not entirely sure that Greenberg exists--he doesn’t have a mailbox in the biology office, at least. When he finally gets the meeting to happen, he has to sit through an over-long, suspiciously familiar inspirational speech before he can escape to his desk with some more papers. Doctor Fenris is Derek’s outside advisor. They’ve only met once and Derek mostly hopes that they don’t have to meet too many more times. At the end of the week, he hits send on an email that he spent way too long composing and very promptly receives a response with 2 papers attached. The body of the email just reads “Good luck.” After that, it’s just a matter of ducking into Deaton’s office to complete his pile.

When he gets home that Friday afternoon, he’s fully prepared to not leave until Monday morning with preliminary notes on everything and a list of resource books to read. He knows from talking with other students that the first week is pretty critical for setting goals and figuring out how to study, so it's do or die time. 

He's heard his new neighbors coming back in on the past few weekends and was relieved that they were mostly quiet. Tonight, though, he doesn't hear the door slam shut signalling that they’re heading out. Instead, around ten, he hears the feedback whine of someone plugging in an amp, followed by some noise that might be music, but Derek honestly isn't sure. After about ten minutes, the noise turns into an endless cover of “Stairway to Heaven.” Derek growls and slams his notebook shut for the night.

It goes on for a solid hour. It’s clear that they're rehearsing because they keep stopping halfway through the song to yell at each other until someone bangs really loudly on the drums, and then they start all over again. The drummer also keeps getting sidetracked and adding extra flourishes mid-song, which derails everything. They aren’t terrible, but that’s not going to stop Derek from being annoyed about it.

He spends the rest of the weekend in a corner of the library. Next door stays quiet at night, but there’s definitely a hint of pot smoke in the vents on Sunday night. 

\---

Eventually, Derek falls into an easy routine of sleep and work. Things in the lab are even tolerable with Lydia there to banter with as they grade lab reports, and she takes as much joy in terrorizing the work-study students as he does.

He comes home late one Friday with a six pack of beer, intent on curling up on the couch with some terrible tv and no papers. As he rounds the corner from the elevator, he’s confronted by the sight of a skinny boy slumped against his neighbor’s door. He’s arguing with someone on the phone, but as Derek approaches, he looks up to wave listlessly.

“No. No, Isaac, listen. Listen, I can’t go in there...no, don’t hang up on me. Damn it.” The other boy thunks his head against the door and sighs before jumping up and approaching Derek as he unlocks his door.

“Hi! You’re Derek, right? Scott mentioned meeting you when we moved in. Can you do me a huge favor and let me in to use your bathroom? He has Allison in there and last time this happened, I saw things I just really didn’t need to see. Really, how much does it _suck_ that I just got sexiled from my whole apartment? And Isaac is a dick and won’t let me crash on his couch so my friends all suck....” He trails off as Derek just stares at him, overwhelmed by the onslaught of words.

The boy fidgets, rubbing at the back of his head and looking at Derek hopefully. He honestly looks pathetic and even Derek has to acknowledge it’d be awful to leave him sitting in the hallway. Derek sighs and finishes unlocking his door.

“Come on in, then--” he pauses. “--I don’t think I caught your name?”

“Oh! My friends all call me Stiles.” He sticks his hand out and Derek gives it a short shake before opening the door.

“Bathroom’s straight ahead. And you can hang out until someone lets you crash or they’re done next door.”

Stiles’ face lights up. “Really? Oh, man, you are a lifesaver. You just don’t even know.”

“No, it’s fine,” Derek says as they walk in. “You were looking pretty pathetic out there anyway.”

“I resent that implication,” Stiles says as he vanishes into the bathroom.

Derek dumps his things in a corner of his bedroom and changes into a pair of sweats. By the time he wanders back into the living room, Stiles is already poking through the things on his bookshelves. Derek watches him for a second and then clears his throat, making Stiles jump and whirl around guiltily.

“You want something to drink while we wait?” Derek asks.

“Uh, sure. Whatever you’re having is fine,” replies Stiles.

Derek grabs two of his beers and passes one to Stiles before settling on the couch. Stiles raises his eyebrow at the bottle, but doesn’t say anything, instead raising it in acknowledgement and taking a sip. Derek turns the tv on in an attempt to avoid awkward silence as Stiles goes back to studying his bookshelves.

After several long minutes, Stiles reaches over to a small framed photo that Derek has perched in front of some of his books. Derek’s smiling in the photo, with a petite girl draped on one of his shoulders and what are clearly their parents standing next to them.

Stiles looks over his shoulder at Derek. “Your family?” Derek just nods in response. Stiles smiles. “They look nice. Do they live far from here?”

Derek takes a careful breath. “No. They’re dead now.”

Stiles draws in a quick breath, looking frozen in place. He puts the photo carefully back in place, letting out the breath slowly.

“I...Well, I guess I won’t say sorry. I mean, it doesn’t really change anything, does it? I didn’t even know them, so how could I possibly...My mom died when I was 11, so. Yeah, I get it.” Stiles fidgets. “Anyway, they seem like they were nice, I guess.”

This time the silence feels more weighted as Stiles shifts, still staring at the bookshelves and Derek stares at the tv, not actually watching, but also unsure of what to say now. Finally Stiles turns to face him with a hesitant smile.

“So...wolves, huh?”

Derek relaxes back into the cushions, knowing that his research, at least, will be a safe topic of conversation. Stiles curls up at the other end of the couch with his beer.

“Yeah, wolves. They’re my dissertation topic.”

Stiles perks up at that. “Oh! I knew I’d seen you around campus. So you’re a grad student then?”

“I am,” says Derek. “I’m studying how genetics is influencing pack structure, especially in packs that are reintroduced to the wild. Are you a bio major, or...?”

Stiles snorts. “Are you kidding me? I barely survived gen bio freshman year. Nah, I do computer science.”

They talk a bit more about school, but eventually they fall into a comfortable silence, watching tv with Stiles checking his phone every so often. In an uncharacteristic move, Derek actually finds himself relaxing in Stiles’s presence. He’s tried having people over before for casual hang-outs, but it always ended up feeling forced and weird to have someone else in his space. It’s not like that now though, a fact that Derek tries not to dwell on too closely.

The silence holds for about half an episode The Big Bang Theory, but then Stiles starts fidgeting. It’s not even normal fidgeting; he’s tapping his foot and his fingers are adding to the steady rhythm with a beat on his knee and it’s driving Derek slightly crazy. During one particularly enthusiastic flurry, Stiles looks up and instantly flushes when he realizes Derek is looking at him.

“Sorry, habit,” he says.

Suddenly it all makes sense in Derek’s head. “Oh god, you’re the drummer, aren’t you?” When Stiles just stares at him, Derek continues with, “I heard you playing a few weeks ago.”

Derek feels validated when Stiles instantly looks contrite. “Yeah, sorry about that. We try not to play in the apartment much since Isaac can normally sneak us into the practice rooms on campus.”

Derek just shrugs. “You guys are just lucky you’re at the end of the hall.”

Before Derek can continue, Stiles’ phone beeps and he lets out a whoop when he checks it.

“It is officially safe to re-enter the premises.”

“Safe to re-enter, yes. But maybe not safe to sit on anything,” Derek replies. Stiles cringes and laughs.

“Don’t even remind me. Anyway, I better go before they start up again or something. Thanks for letting me hang out and... I guess I’ll see you around. Maybe I’ll even come ask if I can borrow a cup of sugar someday.” The last bit is followed by a wink and then Stiles is gone. Derek ruthlessly squashes down the part of himself that wishes Stiles had stayed.

\---

It’s not till a couple days later that Derek finds the bright red hoodie in a crumpled heap next to the sofa, half wedged underneath. Given his lack of recent visitors, it can only belong to Stiles; he vaguely remembers seeing him wearing it in the hallway. Derek is halfway to reaching for his phone when he remembers that he doesn’t actually have Stiles’ number. It’s late enough that someone will almost certainly home next door, so he decides to go knock on their door.

It takes a few minutes of knocking and ringing the doorbell before there’s a loud thump on the other side of the door and then it is opened. Derek is greeted by a sleepy looking boy who is most definitely not Stiles or Scott. He blinks up at Derek, scratching at the back of his head and then wanders back into the apartment to flop on a ragged futon.

When Derek lingers at the threshold, he just calls out, “Are you just gonna stand there?” So Derek wanders in, looking around for Stiles, or even Scott.

“So you live here too?” he asks, looking around. There’s a battered drum set in the corner of the living room and a pile of tangled X Box controllers in front of the TV. Typical college boy chic, Derek thinks.

“Nah,” comes the lazy reply. “Just here a lot.”

Derek sits, wondering if he should just leave a note or something when the door behind him bangs open.

“Honey, I’m home!” Stiles yells from the door. Derek shifts to look at him and Stiles freezes at the door. “Oh, hi? Why are you in my apartment?”

Derek just jerks his head over at the stranger on the futon. “Ask that one.”

“Isaac, we talked about letting strangers past the front door,” Stiles says, dropping his bag by the door and flopping down on the other side of the futon.

Isaac just shifts to nudge Stiles in the thigh with his toe and goes back to concentrating on the tv.

“So, what’s up? I’m sure you have better things to do than hang around here,” Stiles says. Derek just wordlessly holds out the hoodie and watches as Stiles’ face lights up. “Oh man, I was wondering where that had gone. That one’s my favorite!”

Stiles leans over to grab the hoodie and promptly buries his face in it. Derek watches the happy reunion for a second and then stands.

“Not a problem,” he mutters. “I’ll see you around.”

The last thing he sees before walking out the door is Stiles grinning at him happily from behind the folds of the hoodie.

\---

Derek is just minding his own business at his desk when Stiles bursts into his life again. He has a pile of lab reports to get through by Monday and a fresh stack of reading for his exam that hasn’t been touched in a couple days. He thinks that it wouldn’t be so terrible if his students had proper handwriting, but as it is, most of the lab reports are nearly illegible. He’s just picked up his red pen again when the door to the lab opens and someone shouts “Erica?” around the corner. 

Of course it’s Stiles.

He rounds the corner, looking ready to call out again, when he sees Derek and stumbles to a halt. “Oh. You!”

“Um, me?”

Stiles bursts into open-mouthed laughter. “Oh my god. _You’re_ the terrifying grad student who growled at Erica her first week working here? Oh this is great, she is never living this one down.”

Derek frowns in response. “She left one of my DNA samples out of the freezer.”

Stiles snorts. “Well, was it damaged?”

“Not the point,” Derek mutters.

“I’m just sayin’,” Stiles replies. “Anyway, have you seen her around? She told me she was working today and I need to give her my old Psych notes.”

Derek looks around the empty lab. “I think she’s supposed to be here soon. Uh, I guess you can hang out and wait if you want?”

“Alright, cool!” Stiles wanders over to sit at the table behind Derek’s desk and pulls out his phone, so Derek just turns back to his papers.

Ten minutes and one terrible lab report later, the door to the lab swings open and Derek hears the tell-tale click of Lydia’s heels on the tile. He leans back in his chair to give her a lazy wave, which she returns, and then promptly stops in her tracks to stare at Stiles.

“Stiles? What are you doing here?” she asks, loudly.

Stiles clearly hasn’t heard her come in and is nearly startled off his chair when she says his name. Derek sees the moment when it registers who is talking to him and Stiles’s attempt at a smooth recovery has him rolling his eyes.

‘Heeeeeey, Lydia. I didn’t know this was your lab too,” Stiles says.

“Well, surprise, then.” Lydia goes to dump her armful of papers on her desk and goes to sit at the lab table with Stiles. “So, what’ve you been up to, anyway? It’s been a while.”

“Oh, the usual. School, work, keeping Scott in school, the band. But hey, enough about me! Grad school, huh?”

Lydia waves off his deflection. “Grad school’s whatever. I’ll be out in 4 years and on to better things soon enough. How’s your dad?”

“Do you know how hard it is to get a grown man to eat his vegetables when you’re not cooking them for him? I’m honestly about two seconds from siccing the rest of the force on him. I keep forwarding him articles about high cholesterol with lots of sad faces, but I think he’s just deleting them all, which, not cool.” Stiles finally takes a second to breathe and seems to realize that both Derek and Lydia are staring at him. “Anyway. Yeah, he’s fine.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” says Lydia. “So why are you here anyway? I didn’t know you knew Derek.”

“Oh! Yeah, Derek’s my neighbor. And I need to give Erica some notes, have you seen her?”

“Neighbors, huh?” Lydia shoots Derek a look and he suddenly remembers the conversation they had earlier where Derek complained about his terrible, noisy neighbors for twenty minutes straight. “She’s doing some work for me down the hall. I can take you down there, if you’d like. She’s going to be a while.”

Stiles bounces to his feet. “Oh man, that would be awesome. Thanks so much.” And then he follows Lydia out of the lab with a final yell of, “See you around, Derek!”

The door closes behind them, plunging the lab back into its previous quiet and Derek realizes it wasn’t so bad having Stiles around. He stares blankly at where Stiles was sitting and then turns back to his grading with a sigh. The lab reports aren’t going to grade themselves.

\---

One Friday Derek gets back to his apartment well past ten, and he’s ready to collapse in bed with no alarm. Instead, he finds Stiles sitting on the floor outside his front door with a six-pack of beer.

“We really have to stop meeting like this,” Derek says wryly. He’s actually really tired, so this isn’t the greatest timing, but he’s still secretly a little pleased to see Stiles again.

Stiles sticks his tongue out at him, scrambling up to his feet with the beer clutched to his chest. “Please say you'll let me into your apartment.”

“Last I checked, you had your own apartment,” Derek says with a tired wave.

“Scott's gone for the weekend with Isaac; he said something about finding himself. And I called the landlord and he's not answering his phone and I just really don't want to sleep in the hallway,” Stiles says nearly in one breath. He finishes it off with, “I brought beer?”

Derek rolls his eyes, but unlocks the door anyway.

So, once again, Derek finds himself on the couch, drinking beer and watching TV with Stiles. This time Stiles has insisted on putting in one of Derek’s Planet Earth DVDs (after carefully making sure that it was the proper BBC version with David Attenborough, much to Derek’s silent approval). They’re about halfway through “Episode Three: Fresh Water” and on their second beer each when Stiles’ phone rings. It’s creeping up on one in the morning. The call makes Derek feel edgy, so he eavesdrops as Stiles fumbles with his phone.

“Dad, hey! Is everything okay?” Stiles listens for a moment, and when it becomes evident that nothing is wrong, Derek pauses the DVD and moves to the kitchen to give Stiles some privacy.

He’s running out of things to do in the kitchen before Stiles is done. He’s already washed the few dishes in the sink and is contemplating whether he actually wants a snack when Stiles joins him again.

“Hey, sorry about that. He likes to talk and his shifts are so weird, it’s hard to find time. We can go finish the ep if you want.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s--it’s awesome that you guys take the time to talk. So, you’re pretty close?”

Stiles shifts, leaning against the counter. “Yeah, well. After my mom we had a really bad couple of years. We didn’t know how to deal with it, but it got better eventually. He’s just so far away now. He’s a cop so I guess I just worry a lot anyway.”

“Hard to make him eat his veggies from here, isn’t it,” Derek says lightly.

Stiles flushes. “Look, he’s not gonna be young forever and I need him to be around. So shut it, grumpy.”

“Ha, I’m not grumpy,” Derek says. “And I think it’s nice that he has someone to worry about him.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says quietly.

Derek shifts uncomfortably in the silence and clears his throat. “So, uh, Planet Earth? I should probably get to bed after this one”

They settle back on the couch, finishing off the episode in silence. Then Derek retreats to his room, leaving Stiles under a pile of blankets on the couch. 

The next morning Derek wakes up at eight for a run, and when he wanders out to the living room, Stiles is still a lump of blankets. Derek scribbles out a note for Stiles and leaves.

When he gets back an hour later, Stiles is gone and the blankets have been neatly folded on the couch. There is an edit to the note Derek left for him.

~~Out for a run. If you leave while I’m gone, just shut the door well behind you.~~   
_Thanks, I owe you. :)_

Derek grabs the paper and moves to throw it away, hesitates, and tucks it into a drawer to keep for reasons he can’t really define.

\---

The weekend after Halloween, Derek is sitting in his living room, surrounded in papers and trying not to panic. It’s just over a month until quals and the amount of reading left seems never-ending. Deaton’s on his case about processing more of the absurd number of DNA samples that Derek collected over the summer. The problem with that ends up being that working with the samples just reminds Derek again that the only reason he has so many is that he didn’t have a family to go on vacation with. As it is, teaching and grading papers is taking up most of his time. He’s set aside this weekend for studying and his room looks like the library threw up in it.

It goes well enough for most of Saturday morning, but in the afternoon, Derek hears the familiar whine of amp feedback from the apartment next door. He lasts about five minutes before it’s too distracting and he has to go bang on the dividing wall between the apartments. The music cuts out and Derek hears someone slide their window open. He opens his window and when he leans out, he’s confronted by Stiles’ grinning face.

“Do you mind? Some of us are trying to do work.” Derek asks. He keeps his tone light, almost teasing.

Stiles just sticks out his tongue. “I don’t mind, actually. Got any requests?”

“Something quiet. In fact, something absolutely silent would be perfect.” There’s no real heat behind his words though, and Stiles has clearly picked up on it, based on his grin.

“I’ll see what I can do.” And then Stiles is slamming his window shut. Before Derek can even shut his window, the music starts up again, except now it sounds like a garbled version of Greensleeves. To be fair, it _is_ quieter than the Metallica they were attempting at first, so Derek just slides his window shut with a grin and picks up his papers again.

Derek doesn’t see Stiles for the whole first week and a half of November. It’s mid-terms for the undergrads so he’s swamped with grading in addition to studying for his own exams. He takes to staying until the school library closes, getting home well past midnight only to crash out until 6am when he leaves for campus to start the cycle again. It gets to the point where Lydia just starts leaving granola bars and water bottles on his desk.

He knows he’s working himself into a breakdown. It’s inevitable. He finds himself telling this to the picture of his family late one night in a half-hearted attempt to get his morale up. Finally, he falls asleep mid-sentence and wakes up on the couch the next morning, surrounded by his papers, clutching the picture.

_It’s only a matter of time till this all catches up with me,_ Derek thinks. Until then, he works.

\---

Pretty much the only bright spot in the month comes at the end of the second week when there’s a knock on his door. Derek feels like he should be more annoyed to open it and find Stiles and a box of pizza on the other side, but he finds that it’s a welcome distraction. Stiles holds the pizza box out at him.

“Before you say anything, I come bearing pizza. Pizza with all the toppings.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Why do I feel like I’m being bribed?”

Stiles just grins sheepishly. “Scott has people over and I have this massive project due on Monday that I can’t focus on when everyone is yelling at video games in the other room. Also, the library closes early on Sunday, so it’s not even worth the train money to get there. So, please please please can I come in to work? I promise you won’t even know I’m here.”

Before Derek can answer, there is a shout from the apartment next door and Stiles winces away from it. The move brings Stiles into Derek’s personal space and Derek finds himself unconsciously leaning into it. When he realizes it, he jerks back slightly and hopes that Stiles hasn’t noticed.

“Yeah, come on in. I’m working anyway as well, just don’t make too much noise and we’ll be fine. Wanna watch an ep of Planet Earth with the pizza and then we can get to it?”

He gets a beaming smile in response and they settle in to watch David Attenborough tell them about caves. Again, it’s easy between them, the silence only broken by Stiles trying to mimic David’s British accent on particularly amusing words while Derek tries to pretend that he’s not watching Stiles’s mouth work over the syllables. The downtime gives Derek a chance to unwind and by the time the episode is over, he feels ready to sit down, refocus and actually get some meaningful reading done.

It seems to have had the same effect on Stiles because he just sets up his laptop at the table, sitting across from Derek, and gets right into his own work. They pass the time working like this until the sun is slanting low across Derek’s apartment, coloring everything in bright sunset orange. Derek is starting to get hungry again, and maybe wondering if it would be too forward to offer Stiles some dinner and more quality time on the couch, when Stiles stops his manic typing and stretches in his seat.

“All done, then?” Derek asks, definitely not looking at where Stiles’s stretch has pulled his shirt up, revealing a strip of skin.

“Fuck yeah, I am. Oh man, I am starved, I better get going.” Stiles starts to pack up his things while Derek tries to frantically decide what to do. The decision is taken from him when Stiles continues with, “Oh shit, is it really almost six? Erica is going to _kill_ me if I’m late meeting everyone for dinner again.”

Then he’s giving Derek a distracted pat on the shoulder in thanks and rushing out the door, calling back his thanks for the quiet afternoon. That night, as he makes dinner, he realizes that Stiles has fit into his life without even really trying. He stubbornly refuses to dwell on the thought that his sister probably would have liked him.

\---

The week before Thanksgiving, Derek’s holed up in his apartment with a handle of Jack Daniels, determined to not leave until he runs out of food. By Thursday night, he's reduced to sitting on his kitchen floor and pretending that everything is okay through the haze of drunkenness. So, of course, the last thing he expects is Stiles.

The doorbell rings a couple times, followed by insistent knocking. Derek isn't sure he actually cares who it is, so he just slurs out “it's open!” and goes back to contemplating the linoleum. And that's the state Stiles finds him in moments later.

“Whoa, hey. Are you okay, man?” he asks, crouching down at Derek's side and putting a hand on his shoulder.

Derek shrugs. “'s just the whiskey, I'm fine. Why're you here?”

After a pat on the shoulder, Stiles settles on the floor with Derek, leaning back against the cabinets. “Just thought I'd come visit my favorite neighbor before I left for Thanksgiving break.”

“You're on the end of the hall, Stiles. I'm your only neighbor.”

“Exactly!” Stiles is grinning manically at him and it's making Derek feel wrong. He reaches over to push Stiles' head away.

“Stop grinning at me, it's exhausting.”

When he finally takes his hand away, Stiles switches to frowning at him.

“What's wrong? Do you...I don’t know--wanna talk about it? Helps me sometimes.”

Derek rolls his eyes and mutters, “Of course it does.” Stiles just waits expectantly and finally Derek says, “Okay, yeah. Just...don't interrupt me till I'm done.”

Stiles nods.

“Tomorrow’s one year...” and Derek lets it all spill out. He tells Stiles more about the freak fire and how he was supposed to be home and had to stay behind for the lab he was teaching. How proud his parents had been of him being in school and about Laura, who was finishing her landscape architecture internship. And how suddenly it was all gone overnight with a phone call full of words like “explosion” and “no survivors”. Then, with a deep breath, Derek talks about Kate and how he thought they were forever, but she didn't want to deal with him and his grief; too worried about her own life and job prospects to help him heal. He feels empty when he finishes the story of how she broke up with him with a text, already on the way to planning a move across the country and away from him. He's told others about his family, but Kate had stayed locked away in his head until now.

Stiles doesn't say anything when he's done, and Derek is grateful, feeling fragile and absolutely sure that the last thing he wants is more condolences that won't actually change anything. The only thing he does is shift enough that his knee is nudging against Derek's thigh, silent acknowledgment that he's listened to the story.

Finally, Derek takes a deep breath and shifts to meet Stiles' eyes. “Thanks,” he says quietly.

Stiles just smiles. “I didn't do anything, dude. Don't even start with me. Come on, let's get you up off the floor.”

A concentrated effort later, Derek finds himself bundled up on one side of the couch with a glass of water and some Tylenol that Stiles found in the bathroom on the coffee table in front of him. Stiles is curled up at the other end, idly flipping through channels and babbling away about one of his classes. At some point, Derek drifts off to the sound of his voice. He wakes up in the early morning alone on the couch. There's a note on the table from Stiles that just says, _Happy Thanksgiving :)_.

No one has to know that Derek plans on keeping this note too, really.

\---

The morning of the qualifying exam, Derek packs himself a bag of snacks and water and goes to meet his fate. When he opens his front door, he almost steps on a brown paper bag that is sitting on the floor in front of it. There’s a note stapled to the front in Stiles’s distinctive scrawl.

_For energy. You got this!_

Inside the bag is a blueberry muffin. Derek eats it on the way to the exam room.

It’s a solid eight hours of writing and by the end, Derek is pretty sure his hands are going to fall off. On the plus side, he’s feeling pretty good about the six essays he ended up writing and unless he really missed the mark, he’s pretty sure that it will be a pass. Now all he wants to do is go home and pass out for about a week.

Instead, he walks out of the exam room and sees Stiles sitting in an alcove, nodding his head along with whatever is playing in his earbuds. Derek walks up to him and when Stiles spots him, he grins and throws his arms up in a sign of victory.

“ALL HAIL, DEREK HALE! DESTROYER OF EXAMS!” he yells.

Derek reaches up to yank out Stiles’s headphones with one hand and cover his mouth with the other. “Why are you even here?”

Stiles wiggles his eyebrows and licks Derek’s palm, making his flinch back in disgust. “I asked Lydia where the exam was and when it let out. How was the muffin?”

“Er, it was good. Thanks,” says Derek. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t even worry about it. dude. Now go dump your stuff at your desk. We’re celebrating.”

“We?” Derek asks warily.

“You’ll see.”

An hour later, Derek’s sitting in a pub with a larger group than he expected. Stiles is there of course, as are Isaac, Scott, and a girl who can only be the mysterious Allison. Stiles has even managed to get Lydia, Jackson and the undergrads, Erica and Boyd, to come out for dinner. What starts out awkward, with so many groups colliding, turns into easy conversation about school and plans for the holidays.

Derek is only half-listening to Scott tell some ridiculous story about chemistry lab and a dozen eggs when Stiles nudges him with his knee.

“This is ok, right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “This is perfect. Thanks.” Stiles smiles and then looks down, picking at his nails. Derek reaches out to stop the movement. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Uh, well,” Stiles starts and then pauses, taking a breath. “Well, the band is having a show next weekend and I wanted to know if you wanted to go? I mean, you don’t have to if you don’t...it’s just a stupid battle of the bands thing and we won’t win. But like, I could give you the info if you want?”

Derek just blinks back at him and after a moment, Stiles takes a shaky breath.

“Y’know what, nevermind. It was stupid anyway.” He seems to notice that Derek is still holding on to one of his hands and shifts to pull it away. Derek just tightens his grip.

“It’s not stupid,” he says. “It’ll be fun. Give me the info.”

Stiles grins up at him, relieved and Derek releases his grip on Stiles’s hands. When he finally looks away, Lydia is smiling at him gently from across the table. That night Derek adds another note from Stiles to his collection.

_Friday, Dec 14th. Howl at the Moon. 8pm._

\---

Derek manages to keep the details of the night a secret from Lydia for all of two days before she weasels the time and location out of him. Once she does, she leaves Derek with strict instructions on what to wear and when to meet her and Jackson to go to the bar together. He grumbles as she is giving her directions, but when she’s gone, he breathes a sigh of relief that she isn’t going to let him bail. 

And so, the night of the show, Derek finds himself shrugging on his worn leather jacket and meeting Lydia at the train stop. When they get to the bar, it’s already pretty crowded. There is a raised stage opposite the bar itself with an open floor below it where groups of people are chatting while the first band sets up. Derek heads right to the bar to grab some beers while Lydia goes to scope out a good spot for them to stand.

Stiles’s band goes up third and Derek settles back to watch. He’s not sure what to expect, with all the noise he’s heard coming from the neighboring apartment, but they aren’t actually terrible. Stiles does all of the talking for the band and he’s clearly in his element as he yells enthusiastically at the audience, encouraging everyone to sing along with their covers. The highlight of the set, for Derek, ends up being a song that Stiles introduces as an original. It’s slower and almost full of yearning, supported by Isaac’s soft, lilting vocals. About halfway through it, Stiles’s eyes find Derek in the crowd and he smiles when Derek raises his drink in silent acknowledgement.

Then they’re closing with an uptempo pop song and Derek claps along with the rest of the bar. And then he’s nearly knocked over by Stiles, who runs right over to tackle him into a happy hug. When Derek looks around, Lydia and Jackson have slipped away to chat with Scott, so he focuses all his attention on Stiles.

“So, what’d you think?” Stiles asks breathlessly.

“You guys are pretty great,” Derek says honestly. “I really liked your original song. Who wrote it?”

Stiles looks down, suddenly gone shy. “Yeah, I wrote that one over Thanksgiving break. It just, I don’t know, it just came to me. I don’t normally...” he trails off. 

Derek grips at Stiles’s arm. “Well, it’s great. I’m glad you played it.”

Stiles turns the full force of his grin on him again and Derek freezes, because _this_. This is a tipping point into something. Stiles’s arm slides along his side, warm under his leather jacket, and Derek’s thumb has started rubbing along the skin of Stiles’s wrist when he wasn’t paying attention.

Derek licks at his lips nervously, watching and Stiles’s eyes flicker down to his mouth with a flutter of his insanely long eyelashes. And when did he become this person, Derek wonders.

Then the moment breaks, and in that breath, Stiles is leaning forward to kiss at Derek’s lower lip, tentative and soft until Derek tilts his own head to turn it into a proper kiss. He feels Stiles’s grip on his side tighten as Derek shifts them slightly to press Stiles up against the wall, cradling the back of his head with the hand not gripping at his wrist.

They finally break apart, dizzy with lack of air and Stiles is grinning. “Hi,” he whispers. “I promise this isn’t why I invited you here.”

“Oh,” says Derek. “That’s too bad.”

Stiles laughs, happy and open-mouthed. “Well...maybe I was hoping.”

And then Lydia and Scott are whooping somewhere behind Derek and Isaac is pulling Stiles away to put him in a headlock. Derek smiles and moves to lean back against the wall. He might have to revise his opinion of college towns. College students might not be so terrible after all.

**Author's Note:**

> PS: Derek passes his exam. Stiles throws him a party.
> 
> A million thanks to eloiserummaging and manderkat. They let me whine at them about how much I hated my writing, helped me through writer's block and made everything about this story better. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my fault.


End file.
